These Hearts Adore
by YellowGlue
Summary: Innocence spins him harder than moonshine. Patience makes her glow from the inside. Summertime on the lake, and a fall she fears more than anyone ever should. Wild sweet pea and Jeremiah Weed. Morning rain and pink sunshine. One love. Two mouths. One love. One house. Palm to palm, this is how we always start. What started as an entry for Dirty Talkin Edward, grew and grew.
1. one

"Masen...?"

Even through sleep, my heart beats harder for the only innocent sound that's ever wrapped around my name.

When I don't budge or blink, love hums a sigh.

It's the sound of her smile.

Heartbeats warm my chest. I don't have to open my eyes to know it's so early it's still dark out. Tulip never sleeps through the whole night.

"Masen," she whispers again, almost inaudible over the patter of rain drifting through open windows.

She's been awake a while. I felt her shift in my arms and the change in her breathing.

Waking a little more as I gather her closer, I flatten my palm between small shoulders. There, underneath my tee-shirt, familiar as my own and a thousand times more important, I feel her heart, alive and awake, and awaiting affection.

Tucked under and against me, Bella laughs. It's breathless. It's breath-seeking, and it's the sound that makes my heartbeats overflow.

"Edward!" She demands in a hush, using both hands in an attempt to lift my arm. "You're crushing my entire respiratory system!"

I smile widely, much more awake now even though my eyes remain closed.

"Help," she playfully pleads, pushing and pretending to panic. "Help! Somebody! My bronchial tubes!"

Lifting my arm from the curve of her heart's cage, I shift lower. No less close, closer still, we lie on our sides, and I bury my face over her sternum. Smiling, I nestle back into sleep right where bronchial tubes carry inhales to the heart of love.

* * *

**hi hi and bon matin!**

**this was originally written for the Dirty Talkin' Edward contest. in an effort to make the word limit, i had to cut around five thousand words from the original finished product. so, i cut cut cut, finally got it down to eligible, and entered it as Tender is the Day. but, when i read through it the next morning, it broke my heart to see so many pieces of it missing.**

**so, i asked it to be taken down. **

**this is the full story with all those little pieces restored.**

**it will be posted in seven short-ish segments throughout today and complete by tonight.**

**lovelybrutal kkbaby all my stars has held my heart and both my hands through all of this, and worked endlessly to find all my missing words and mistakes. she also let me borrow little glow, and showed me the staggering beauty of stuttering in the midst of adoring love. any mistakes left herein are mine, not hers. i love you, pink moonbloom. i'm with you right now, loving you with every single beat and breathe in-between.**

**if you're reading this, thank you so so so much, and good morning :-)**


	2. two

I wake this time to Bella kissing under my chin, asking me to let her up, telling me she's going to shower. She twists, and I free her, opening my eye that isn't in our pillows to watch her climb away.

It's still dark in our room, before dawn, but her rainbow nightlight lets me see little cheeks, discreetly hugged by sea foam green briefs, peeking out from under the edge of my tee-shirt. She walks from our bed with the same adorably sweet, unfucked sway in her hips she always walks with, and I smile in our pillows. So-warm, too-full beats, course quickly and collect at the base of my dick.

Closing my eye as Bella closes our bathroom door, I press the heel of my hand there and shift, bearing and placating the concentrated want just to touch and fill, and fuck. I turn and stretch, and curl back up, flipping my pillow to the cool side. The heated increase in my blood flow and the looming hangover tightening around my head make me want to stay in bed, but I get up.

While everyone else sleeps, Bella showers, and I pull on a clean tee and dark denim cut-offs. Cuffing them up at the knees, I step sockless into black Sauconys and drop my hat on backwards, grabbing my iPod, headphones and bag before heading downstairs.

The lake house I walk through is Mikey's dad's, but it's home away from university for the next two and half months. Bella and I have a room upstairs, down the hall from Doe and Paul, and Mikey's is downstairs, across from Senna and Mackenna.

It's summer time, and living here is so easy.

I pour a glass of sangria that Doe and Bella made last night and roll a joint in the breakfast nook. Daylight breaks through as I'm sealing it, and I head outside.

Morning smells like laurel and wild sweet pea, like freshly poured soap. Bright blue and golden-white sky reflects in Deep Creek Lake on my right, and the Railey Mountains surround me on all sides. The sun's barely up, but it's already warm on my back as I walk from the deck to the worktable in the grass.

Shuffling songs, I pull my headphones on when _Is This Love?_ starts, turning it up as I set fire to the joint. Flipping my hat around to keep the sun from my eyes, I run my hands along the round tabletop in front of me. More woodgrain has come up through yesterday's coat of stain. It needs one more before we start putting handlebars in.

"_I want to love you," _Nesta Robert Marley sings while I grab the hand-sander.

"_And treat you right," _he promises over easy beats. "_I want to love you every day and every night..."_

Of course I think of my love.

When we met, I'd just started my third year at Columbia. I'd crashed at Paul's after a party the night before, and had assumed I was alone the next morning. His off and on girlfriend, Doe – as in Jane – was sometimes there, but I hadn't heard her. I made coffee, smoked a roach and had a shower.

I was pouring a second cup of coffee when this slip of a girl walked up beside me to reach for an orange, and I about jumped out of myself. I had no idea there was anyone else in the house. She had to have come downstairs right behind me, and I hadn't heard anything.

Not a footfall, not a breath, nothing.

She had to have tiptoed through the whole place like it was made of tulips.

"_Is this love?" _Bob Marley asks my eardrums. _"Is this love? Is this love? Is this love that I'm feeling?"_

It was off-putting it was at first, feeling disarmed by her. I had no idea then where little tiptoes learned to be so silent.

Working the sander across rough woodgrain, I wish they never had to be.

Over coffee and an orange on Paul's couch, I learned she was only seventeen, a genius-autodidact baby here on scholarship. Dark on pale, on every kind of soft all over, she slipped right under my skin.

Over coffee between classes in the weeks that followed, I learned I'd never seen here anywhere the rest of us gathered because she didn't like crowds, or anywhere too loud. She didn't like to be looked at too long, either, or touched.

At all.

Bella was very aware of her personal space and intensely protective of it.

I was twice as patient as I was intrigued, though.

I remember wanting so much to be worthy of welcome in that space, the way Doe only barely was.

It took another six months of trading books and music for coffee between classes to become naps on my couch. She loved falling asleep reading while I read, too, and there I was on my floor with my back against the where she was, loving her in my space and wishing so hard my spine was bound to covers and I was made of pages.

Not only did I not want her out from under my skin, I wanted her deeper under it, and I wanted to see and touch and feel every inch of hers.

Curiosity had grown into more than liking, and I knew she saw it in the way she looked at me. I didn't know what she'd been through then, why she needed to go so slowly, to be so sure, but I'd come from a place where love was fucked up, too. I could wait. I wanted to.

Bob Marley shuffles to Sublime, and the huge wooden circle feels smooth under my right hand, but its edges still need work. Puffing twice, I keep going.

The first time I finally touched love, it was because we reached in the same moment.

It was November and crazy cold. Door just closed, we were standing in my living room laughing about the blizzard that had come out of nowhere, and her nose was so pink. She was all quivering chin and snowflakes on her eyelashes, and, "my hands are freezing."

She smiled as she extended curled-closed hands from under her chin out into wind-bitten-pink fingers, toward me. Palm to palm, fingers between fingers for a double-heartbeat, she smiled so high, and emboldened by it, I covered both of her hands and brought them cupped to my mouth for warm breath.

She smiled higher.

I was twenty one then, and my heart had never beat so hard.

I pull a deep hit.

Four months later, I drove over in the middle of the night to kill a spider, and Bella was on her tiptoes, hugging me tightly. It was the first time I'd seen her in pajamas, and she had my hoodie on over them. Faded navy blue all but swallowed her, and I could feel her heart beating against my chest. She was looking up, smiling so gratefully, and everything in me said _kiss her._

When I leaned down, and she ducked away, it hurt more than anything before.

Blowing my hit toward the sky, I rub my thumb over a rough spot, smiling to myself as it smooths with careful effort, because there's nothing this love can't do.

Headphones around my neck, late June sunlight warming my back, my last hit is half in the wind and half still in my lungs when I hear the patio door open behind me.

Turning, I find my girl and her best friend on the deck in sundresses.

Setting my hat further back, flicking the roach, I smile at Bella. She doesn't make a sound, but she fucking beams.

Doe says something about breakfast and bong rips, but all I can do is see love's smile, and walk straight toward it.


	3. three

When naps on my couch turned into nights in my bed together, it didn't take long for my circadian rhythms to adjust to love's.

Here and now, even through so drunk, deeper than usual sleep, I feel her wake against me.

I've always been a light sleeper, but Bella's up every few hours throughout every night, sometimes from bad dreams, sometimes just with need. I love the feel of her shifting to be closer, like my arms are shelter. Like just by gathering her to myself, I can keep her from what came before.

I wish I could.

My head pounds with too much vodka. I'm so hard, and she's so soft, and there's a deep, lingering ache to push and move and come. I want her mouth on me, her hands, anything.

Hours before dawn, in our room lit only by dim blue, red and green nightlight, my girl nestles against my chest like she wants to fold into me, and the ache to fuck and come gives way to wishing I could open my heart and tuck her into the deepest part of it while I comb her hometown for the two reasons she's afraid of the dark, and make them both spit teeth between wishes of their own that their daughter had told her teachers or her friends, or the cops -

_Anyone before me_ -

What home was to her.

In her sleep, love's fingers curl into my hair and she hums over my heart.

I swear it hums right back.

I can't take away what's happened, but I can be home for her. I can make a home of holding her, of letting her hold me with all the same lifelong yearning I have to hold.


	4. four

I don't wake again until I feel little knees around my hips and the softest hands searching through our sheets for my own.

Instantly and entirely, I'm made of so-warm, too-full heartbeats, and Bella's surrounding me with the light scent of spearmint and vanilla pears. I don't remember her leaving to shower, or when the sun got so bright, but our fingers find, and nothing else matters. We're palm to palm, enacting our first touch almost exactly, and even though hands are only pressed to hands, it's a touch I feel everywhere.

This is how we always start.

It's how I know she wants to try.

"Good morning," she whispers, opening our fingers, inviting me to trace tender tips and delicate bends.

"Good morning," she says again, mid-daylight breaking through behind dark hair when I blink my eyes open.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she whispers, smiling. "Good morning..."

Pushing my fingers gently along hers, unbending them, keeping them open, I smile as dark lashes lilt and lips I love part. I press the pads of my thumbs into the bases of hers, spreading them slowly out, and little lids completely close.

We move slowly, but we've both come to know these movements by heart.

Hands together, I lean up so we're lips to lips. My temples throb, and need as heavy as gravity concentrates the same place it always does, sorely full between my hips. Love breathes for me, but I know better than to lift and press into her yet.

"You're my good morning," I whisper, indifferent to my headache, unconcerned with the time. "And you have the best," I brush my nose along hers. "Most stellar," and across her cheek. "Most incomparable smile I've ever fucking seen."

Proving my point, lips I'll never get enough of curve higher. Her nose and eyelids scrunch, and her smile becomes the sound that heats my pulse.

"Just like that," I tell her, my own grin growing, so close to hers that every breath she exhales is my intake. Even on my back, my sense of balance dizzies. I swear the air in our room thins as my temperature climbs.

Her smile does this.

Just her smile.

Every part of me wants to kiss love good morning every day, just like this, for the rest of my life.

I trace precious knuckles with prudent awareness and smooth my fingers along each of hers with purposeful patience. Her smile shines even brighter, and it makes my hard-beating heart swell over.

Leaning higher, I close my lips tentatively along the side of her top one.

Once.

Twice when she closes her lips along mine.

And a third time, together, and every cell I'm made of lights up with rightness.

Mouths barely parted, only enough for lips, these are the cleanest, most chaste kisses I've ever shared. They always are, but they're also the bravest, most honest, and most trustful, and as deeply sore as I am for more, I wouldn't trade Tulip's faith or pace for anything.

Her lips part as I brush the sides of her palms, and I kiss through her inhale, lacing my fingers between smaller, softer ones. Her hands try to curve and cling, but I keep her open.

Warm sounds melt along my lips. I kiss and am kissed, and my hips shake through the natural need to lift and push, and hold love all the way open.

She moans, higher, warmer, melting closer along and deeper into me.

Like light.

Like hot pink sunlight.

Hands locked tightly, I lean my shoulders up and kiss like I need to.

I want to devour and be devoured by this earnest, hurtless, natural passion. I want it to swallow me whole.

Helpless little hip-tilts make my own lift just as helplessly. Born for and so fucking sore to give what she seeks, I kiss my girl's mouth wider open and lean my shoulders slowly back until my head is resting again.

Sliding our hands into our pillows, I bend my knees, causing all her gravity to center where mine is.

"You feel so good," I tell her, sliding arms further up while she tries to balance where I'm hardest. "You feel so fucking good, Bella."

Forehead to mine, her weight dips as I raise my hips higher. Knees barely touching our bed, she's cherry-pink cheeked and smiling high between kisses. Breathing together, she tightens our fingers, searches for balance with the sweetest little slides.

"Just like that," I murmur. "Ride, baby," I coax, rocking slowly. "Just ride."

Her lips part as her lids fall. For a few breaths I can't even take, she's all hips.

Innocent bliss.

Pure, soft sex.

Through the haze of waking, I imagine it, being inside her. My heart pours beats, and I rock my hips with painfully patient persistence. I listen to her whole body with all my senses, and I go slowly, but I want her more than everything I've ever wanted put together. I want every breath, every beat, every scar that's too deep to see. I want her without exception, to the most complete degree.

My name keeps starting on her lips, and I want it so much I slow my hips, holding her all the way down.

"Masen," she sing-sighs, small voice fading under barely lifted lashes while she continues to ride.

"Open," I mouth more than whisper. "Open, baby."

Endearingly honest eyes and supple-full lips, bare knees and fingers between mine all hear me, and heed my guidance. Love surrenders to love, and I stroke the tops of her hands with the same slow-motion compulsion that's keeping my hips moving.

She's completely reliant for her next few breaths, and I know she's feeling only me.

Only this moment.

Only loved.

"I'm right here, Bella," I whisper, watching need-filled pupils swell with something unspoken. "Right here, baby."

She blinks, and I wait, still-hips and curved-close fingertips.

"Do you remember coming home last night?" She asks, mostly breath, eyes holding.

My pulse swims. My hips fall and lift again while my focus shifts between now and last night.

_I remember waking to her shifting, holding her closer, equally sore to fuck as I was to tuck her into my heart..._

Digging deeper, I remember going out with Paul and Mikey, while Bella stayed in, content in a book.

_I remember I came back before them, but not before downing an entire handle of sweet tea vodka, and who knows how much apple pie moonshine. _

_I don't know how I made it upstairs, but I remember kneeling here, waking love the same way she woke me just now._

_Palm to palm -_

_I wanted to try._

_I remember her smile and, "You taste like cinnamon apples."_

_And kissing her, telling her, "You taste like sugar and spice."_

_I remember her giggle._

_And, telling her, "Not really. Not spice. But sugar. And pink. And everything nice."_

_I remember rolling her on top of me -_

"Do you?" Bella asks, so-openhearted eyes, the most hopeful smile and her hands tugging at mine.

She wants to touch my face. I know she does.

Laughing a little, waiting on my memory to further clear, I lean up to kiss, and can't help making her lift.

Short on air, all the way off our bed, Bella giggles. I'm literally holding her up. She's just trying to balance, but I'm beyond fully hard. Every shift and slide covers me with soft, warm pressure.

I free her left hand and it goes straight to my cheek and into my hair. Mine goes to her hip, over shorts I know the feel of and she knows I love. I hold her with equal parts heart and forethought, and what she's asking comes back to me. Not verbatim, but I remember.

It was crude.

And new.

And so fucking true.

Over two years of growing closer, I've said a lot to Bella, and listening is an honor I'm grateful for, even when we're silent. I hear her with my whole heart and I tell her only the truth, and I know my voice grounds her in these so-intimate, almost too-fragile moments, but there's a lot I haven't said, too. There's unmitigated want and inexhaustible need that I've carried quietly because I don't want her to feel like I'm pushing.

Between kisses, my girl smiles, and her breath on my lips intensifies everything. I remember chasing precious trembles with obscene words for longing, kissing under her ear, whispering profane wishes that had her so much closer than ever before.

Watching my eyes, Tulip blushes. Shy and playful, she's so turned on I feel her pulse in her palm.

Brushing my thumb along her hip, sliding my hand up, I trace circles through her blouse, giving her every chance to feel where I am and what I seek. Bit by bit, I untuck her top and slip my hand underneath, around her side, groaning into our kiss when I feel warm-soft, still-so-new-to-me skin.

She makes the sound my heart beats for, and I part our lips. Not to breathe, but because truth is shiftless and bare on my tongue, and I want to give it the same way I want to give every part of myself.

All to love.

"Do you feel me?" I ask, both our lids lifting.

Dark eyes lit with hopeful need, she nods.

"Yeah?" Bringing our hands to the side of her face, I guide her down until I'm surrounded in vanilla sunlight and pink love, needy hope, the most perfect smile, and endless yearning.

She nods again, and I shake my head. Brushing our thumbs to the corner of her mouth, she knows what I want, and opens with a shivering inhale.

"Tell me you feel me, Bella."

"I feel you," she answers, softly desperate. "I feel you."

I smile under beloved little breaths.

"Where, baby?" I ask, helping her move.

She keens, leaning her cheek into our hands. I lower my voice as I lean up and in.

"Where do you feel me, baby?"

"Every-" she breathes. "Everywhere."

My grin grows as she blinks, brows furrowing, bottom lip trembling.

"That's right." I whisper, kissing little furrows and trembles. "Right here." I lift, gripping and shifting so that apprehension is nowhere allowed. "You're all mine, Bella, just mine. Only mine..."

Keening higher, her legs tense with the instinct to open and close and hold.

"Only mine," I promise, swallowing the need to really push and sincerely fuck.

This is more.

I want this so much more.

"Breathe for me." I whisper, edging my hand closer to her stomach. "Slow down, baby. Let me feel you slow down."

"Masen.." Eyes closing and cheeks burning pink, she chases breaths while her hips shake with effort to listen.

"Right here," I whisper. "I'm right here, Bella. Show me you hear me, baby."

Another wave of surrender takes the air from my lungs. I feel her still holding on in her mind, but she's completely physically given over to my guidance. Her whimpers break, sweet and trustful, and if there's a point of no return, this is it.

"There you go," I whisper, emboldened by her trust. I kiss from her lips to her cheek, to her ear. "Slow down, Go slow on my cock, Bella."

The heart of summertime flies so fast, so hard I feel it in my own chest.

"You like when we move like this?" I ask in a lower whisper. "You like feeling how hard you make my cock?"

She nods in my neck, and I move her in tight, heavily slow strokes.

"You like feeling how deeply I need to fuck you, girl?" I kiss under her ear, nuzzling with my nose and digging with my tone. "How deeply I know you need fucked?"

Little Tulip slips into a series of tiny moans and shallow gasps. Made of shaking and riding, she's trying so fucking hard.

I close my fingers between hers carefully tighter.

I want this.

I want this so fucking badly.

"You want more?" I ask, kissing her neck, tensing my arms, flexing strength I know she loves, shifting our hands from her cheek to our hearts. "Take it," I whisper, pushing my whole self up and into her. "All the way down, baby. Take me all the way, Bella. Show me you can..."

Adorably sweet pleas crack along my clavicle. She whimpers freely, desperately close, and I know she needs to come. I want her to, so much, so deeply I can taste it on the back of my tongue like heartbeats and honey, a throatful of soul.

I want to show her what I know this love can do.

Together-hands between our hearts, I press my free hand between her shoulders, aligning my arm down her spine so we're all touch, all contact. With her arm around my neck and fingers clinging to the shirt I slept in, every breath she pants burns hot under my ear while I move her with undeniable encouragement, whispering everything that crosses my so-in-love heart.

"Does that feel good?" I ask, barely audible above breaths and beats. "You like feeling my cock right here?"

Bella nods in my neck, and I hold her to myself, ensuring she feels every word.

"Good girl," I whisper. "So fucking good. Do you need more, baby?"

She nods.

"Open for me. I'll give to you, Bella. Breathe for it. Open, baby. Breathe for me."

She does.

She is.

She's open and breathing just for this. Just for me.

And she's so close.

"You're so open like this, baby. All the way open for me. You need fucked so badly, don't you, Bella?"

She whimpers, clinging and pleading, nodding and riding, and I want to hear it. I want to keep her right here, just like this, and I want her _yes_ like I need my next breath.

"You need me to fuck you?" I ask so quietly. "You need this whole fucking cock, baby?"

My girl nods faster, breathlessly begging with her whole body.

"Open, stay open," I whisper, needing to know her lids are lifted even if I can't see them.

I'm desperate not to lose her.

We're so fucking close.

Just as breathless, I grip her hand to my chest and press her entire body to mine.

"You want me all the way, Bella? You want everything?"

"Yes," is the lightest, softest, barest sound on her lips. It feels just as good in my ears as she does all over me.

"Yeah?" My stomach tightens. "Here?" I ask, pushing irresistibly up into untouched, burning-warm, most-precious sex. "You want my everything right here, baby?"

"Yes," her whisper breaks over the sweetest little note. "Yes. Masen, yes..."

"Inside?" I push harder, deeper, closer. "You want me to come inside you, little Bella?"

"Yes, yes, yes, please, Masen, please -"

She's immeasurably close, and the sound my heart fucking works for sends it out of control.

"Fuck, breathe, baby. Open. Breathe," I whisper, rocking. "I'll give you fucking everything, Bella. I'll give you all of me. Everything, everything..."

I lift higher, showing her.

We're right here together.

"Right here, baby. Come here. Come right fucking here, Bella..."

But it's not up to me.

Or within my reach.

And when the air gets too thin for her to breathe, it's not her fault.

Or mine.

"Easy, baby," I whisper, feeling her panic half a breath before she does. Slowing our rocking, my whole body tenses while I swallow the sting of stopping.

"Easy, slow down, Bella. It's okay, easy, baby, easy..."

But it's too late.

I've lost her to a thousand scars.

Trembling for an entirely different reason, my girl curls in toward herself. Shaking her head and slipping tears, she pushes my shoulder with her free hand, and I turn us onto our sides.

"I'm sorry," she barely breathes as I shift behind her. "I'm sorry. I can't. I can't..."

"It's okay," I whisper, reclasping her hands as I gather her back, wishing so much I could pull love from all the dark I know she's lost in right now.

"You're safe here. It's okay. I'm right here." I surround her with my arms and legs, voice and strength and blankets, all that I am and have and can.

"I'm right here, Tulip," I reassure. "You're mine. Only mine, baby. Only mine."

Small and quiet in her hurt, she lets me hold her while she just weeps.

It's a silence my heart splits and bleeds for.

"Love won't ever hurt you like that, Bella," I promise, holding her wholly close. "Not ever."


	5. five

The next morning, Bella's awake before me as usual, stretching out like a star and curling closer in my arms. Her nose and cheek and lips over my heart wake its pace.

The sun isn't up yet, but the sky is glowing when I open my eyes. Our walls, our blankets and my girl are all hazy dark blue.

What home used to be for love, the painful panic that took her from me yesterday is gone now, and she's whispering to me about dreaming we were on the moon, eating fruit roll ups with Franz Kafka, and I love the way she says it.

_Kahff-kah._

"With who?" I ask, shifting, waking further.

She leans away from my bare chest, looking up with deep-set eyes are that still dreamy and gleaming.

"Kafka," she says again, just the same.

My smile breaks into a chuckle.

The _f_ and the _k_ together make me think of _fuck_, and I've never heard her say it. I can't help wanting to know what it would sound like in her mouth and how it would feel on my lips.

"Say it again," I whisper, dropping my eyes to her lips and stealing a kiss.

She giggles, but she does. She says it, and we're laughing. We kiss, and I tickle her so she'll say it over and over, and the quicker in succession she says it, all breathless in love, the closer to _fuck_ it sounds.

Out of air and pleading mercy, Bella shows me the best, most stellar, most incomparable smile. She kisses me good morning, and it so is. She was tender around the edges yesterday, but my girl's heart is stronger than all the dark that's been cut into it. She's lighthearted and free spirited here and now.

After one pineapple split seven ways, more strawberry pancakes than I can count, twice as many bong bowls and more than a few hours later, Bella and her best friend are napping. Mikey, Senna and Mackenna are in the lake, and I'm out back with Paul, making sure six metal handlebars are secure.

It's the hottest part of the day, but tucked between the mountains, right on the water, it never gets too hot here. The worst part of the summer heat is my own too-long uncut hair bothering the backs of my ears.

I think about asking love to cut it tonight, and about sitting next to her on the couch just a bit ago, blowing my hits across her neck. Bella doesn't smoke or drink, or any of that, but she loves the smell. And she loves feeling so surrounded by me.

Paul's crouched in the grass opposite me, checking and double checking everything. The eight by eight wooden tabletop shape is between us, and finally finished. We built it together, but Paul's the architecture major. He constructed the thing. I'm just the journalism major who smooths rough edges out.

Showing love-to-me everything love can do is all I want to major in.

"Ready?" Paul asks.

"Yeah," I answer, working my fingers between smooth oak and green earth.

Carrying it a few feet to our left, we place the tabletop shape on the ground-bolted base and stand up straight.

And laugh.

Because we built a fucking merry-go-round.

"Think it's alright?" I ask, pushing the edge of the roundabout with my shoe.

"Yeah," Paul answers, lifting his hat and combing through his equally-uncut hair. "Only one way to know, right?"

My grin breaks into another laugh as he takes off running around the circle. I jump on first, but Paul's up on the opposite side just as quickly, and we're cracking up like we're six.

If it can spin like this and hold us, it can easily hold Doe and Bella.

Paul hangs back, cleaning up while I head inside.

Our kitchen sounds like Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and smells like dank grass, sunscreen and fresh towels. There's a game of rummy spread between Doe's two bottles of Corona and Bella's Capri-Sun, and she brings it to her lips like she could even hide her smile as I step inside. She looks like she's consciously resisting the urge run into my arms, and it heats my skin warmer than sunlight.

Licking my lips, I'm about to invite them out, but Doe speaks first.

"Oh my gosh, is it ready?" she asks, wide-eyed and smiling wider.

"C'mon." I nod, smiling too.

They're a rush of giggles as they head outside. Grabbing Bella's Capri-Sun, I finish what's left of it and follow a few steps behind, watching them race to the roundabout.

I've been through more than my share of girls, and hands and heart, senses and soul, I'm only Bella's now. I'm for only her, but – the sound of her spinning with her best friend is pretty fucking beautiful. So-blonde and sun kissed-brown crowns tossed back, tummy-tickled joy comes all the way up from little girl-bellies, and Tulip has the best laugh in the whole world. It's light and bright, and so full – like a daffodil cup opening up for its first sip of ultraviolet love.

Every giggle and titter and inhale for more lifts me higher.

My girl told me once she feels like she's made of broken pieces. She doesn't think she's innocent at all, but she is. The dark she's been through at the hands of those who were only supposed to love her is why she can only sleep for a few hours at a time. It's part of her ingrained inclination toward quiet, and why she can't handle anyone who isn't me or Doe coming even close to touching her. It's why her kiss is the very bravest kiss, and why she's scared to come, and why we start with our hands. It's why two years feel like just the very start of my patience. Her scars run deep, but they're not all of who she is, not by a long shot. The love growing in her heart is far from pieces.

It's only wholesome.

Bella's sinned against, not broken. Not stained or unclean. She's only beautiful, perfect inside and out, and virgin in the purest sense of the word. She's a miracle made only for love. Her joy is a grace to be in the presence of, and a gift I'm soul-deeply thankful she lets me share in.

We've slowed down and are sitting together when Senna and Mackenna come outside. Paul spins them while I head in, thirsty. I want a shower and clean clothes, and they're all leaving soon for the party down at the pier I've no intention of going to.

Laughter and light follow me into the house through open windows. I grab water from the fridge, and it's like a drink for my whole body. I haven't smoked since this morning, but we're all pretty perpetually lifted, and love's laugh gets me sky high.

Tossing the water bottle, I pour Jeremiah Weed over ice and head upstairs. I drink it in the shower, and shave while the bathroom is still full of steam. What's left of it follows me out as I pull on boxer-briefs and glance outside to see Bella sitting criss-cross applesauce in the center of the roundabout. Long sunny brown's pulled up in high ponytail and there's a pink bikini bow around her neck. It's cool enough out for the light white sweater covering her arms and middle, and warm enough for bare legs to curve from faded short-shorts.

She turns a page with her right hand, and I smile.

I wonder if she could come that way, while she's reading, and I think if I held my girl in my lap, all the way close while she held a book, anything might be fucking possible.

_Maybe if I read to her..._

Stepping into fitted denim and a white tee, socks and shoes, I leave my hat and grab my glass, Bella's iPod and my headphones.

Sweet pea and afternoon sunshine float through the house as I move through it, surrounding me when I get back outside. Tall trees and miles of mountains are black silhouettes backlit by deep blue-purple sky, and I hear cicadas and a bullfrog, and the breeze moving through leaves.

Bella looks up when my steps creak patio stairs. She smiles at me like I'm the only one anywhere who speaks her language.

Her glow only grows as I step from the stairs into air that's still resonating with joy. When I reach her, I move slowly so she knows, but I don't hesitate to uncriss-cross applesauce and tug her gently to the edge of the roundabout. Leaving her book behind, soft legs part and bend open at pretty knees while lavender-tipped toes wiggle freely against the ankles of my jeans. Love giggles, and I want to pour my whole self into that bright little cup.

"Hi, little summertime," I say quietly, a little buzzed and barely containing the want to kiss as I place both hands on iron bars and lean in.

"Hi," she says so sweetly. "Hi," she repeats with a smile, reaching up to touch just shaved chin skin with the softest fingertips.

I all but melt into the contact.

Under mine, her smile parts, and her pupils open the smallest bit more.

"Can I spin you?" I ask, leaning closer, right over her, licking my lips and tightening my grip on bars while my whole body circulates and proliferates desire.

_Just to kiss._

_And be kissed._

My girl sees me. She knows, and she wants, too.

True to her quiet nature, little tiptoes nods her head and leans up, giving me petal-pink and twice as delicate lips.

She ducked away the first time I tried, but this affection was so much more than worth waiting for. Tulip loves sinking into every kiss now, and there's no rush. There's no doubt or guilt between us, and there are no fractions. All of our one steps forward, two steps back, are in no way a burden.

To love this miracle is more than enough.

The wind blows around us, and I smile against Bella's lips. I kiss the corner of her mouth chastely before leaning up and taking her iPod from my pocket. All admiration, curiosity and trust, she looks up as I place headphones over her ears.

I asked if I could spin her, and I meant it.

Following her breathing for any sign of apprehension as I adjust the headband to better fit her crown, I watch her eyes too, watching me. I steal another kiss before standing straight, and scroll through her playlists until I find her favorite summer mix. Skipping to a song she loves almost as much as books and kissing, I meet her eyes.

"Ready?" I ask.

When she nods, I lift bare feet onto the smooth wooden surface, press play, and tuck the iPod into Bella's hands.

The same time I take off, so does her laugh.

While deep synths and soft beats surround love, I dig my feet into the earth and spin her 'round. She keeps both hands on the bars, but her smile is open and floating out loud, lifting me higher and making the world itself a better place to be.

Letting go after a few spins, I stand back and watch. Even as she slows, Bella doesn't let go. But her shoulders shimmy a little, and her smile glows, and she finds my eyes with every turn.

I chase her a few steps before giving her another spin all the way around.

When she's out of breath and back on the slow-down, I grab hold of the bars once more. Dilated dark irises and soft giggles chasing softer breaths make devotion pulse through me.

I want to lift her higher.

I want to make the world a better place for her, too.

As she takes the headphones down, I lean so close her laugh touches my lips. Her smile opens, and she lets go of the bars to hold both sides of my face, smiling so high her eyes squint up.

"Wanna go again?" I ask, smiling just as high.

Top teeth in her bottom lip, she nods, and I bring the headphones back up with a kiss.

I spin her, and spin her, and she laughs, and laughs, and I swear it's a sound that could settle wars.

She's turning slowly when the sun starts to really dip. I stop her in front of me, and she takes my headphones down once more. I crouch to be eye-level, but she's slightly taller than me from this angle.

It's fucking adorable.

"Dizzy?" I ask, smiling as I search her look.

Even further out of breath and drunk on spinning, love's excited eyes are half-hidden by exhausted lids. She nods as she smiles wide and touches my face again.

Slowly so she's aware, I move my hands from the bars and uncriss-cross her legs so they dangle over the edge again. I want more of her, but it's an awkward angle. I don't want to lose balance, but I think about laying my love back right here, and leaning over her. I imagine naked, summer-lit skin blushed pretty pink, and I want her.

_Right here. _

_Between sundown and the merry-go-round, with the water so close and the breeze all around, and dizzy-spins still tickling her tummy..._

_Bella would love that._

_I know she would._

Curling her fingers into my hair, summertime hums, and I press the soles of my shoes into the ground to anchor myself. Just barely touching our smiles together, I use my lips to open hers a little further, and she kisses me so deeply I feel my pulse between my shoulders.

Balancing with my left hand around a bar, I place my right gently around her waist, brushing my thumb back and forth over her sweater, and when she opens for a deeper kiss, I grip her side and guide her toward me.

_I want her palms._

_I want her open eyes, open heart..._

_I want her bare._

_I want to make her come right here, just like this, with my hands all over her and my name in her mouth._

_I want to try -_

"Masen," she whispers, using strong-soft hands to bring me closer.

"Right here," I whisper back, shifting my stance, aching to lean forward. "I'm right here," I promise, rubbing my thumb over the top of soft denim while she holds my face, keeping my lips over hers.

I kiss her deeper, longing and breath generously shared between lips and over hums. My girl holds me to herself, and her grip where my shoulders start, on the bends on both sides of my neck, sinks through my skin and seeps like heat into my bloodstream. I go from half-hard to totally ardent in heartbeat. I can't help scooping her off the roundabout and standing us both up.

I don't care what we do.

I don't care if all we touch are hands.

I don't care if we spend the whole night talking about what she was reading before I came down - I just want to do it closer than this. I want her in our bed.

Bella smiles so high as I take her right hand in my left.

We head inside, and with the door closed behind us, this girl is ridiculously cute trying to walk backwards and keep her eyes on mine at the same time. She misses a step trying to go up the stairs that way, but I catch her, and sunset-warm legs wrap around my waist. She's pure summer in my arms, giggling so deeply I swear I can feel her tummy-tickle.

And I want to fuck her all the way through it.

She slides slowly against me while I climb the last few stairs. Left arm around her back, I keep her cheek in my right hand, tracing the corner of the best smile with my thumb. I glance from bright eyes to make-out-pouty lips, slipping steady little breaths like silent sunshine dripping through leaves down onto a page.

Everything in me says _kiss her_, and when I do, she kisses the same way she's breathing, lips and tongue as soft as dappled fucking sunlight.

My shoulder bumps a wall as I walk without sight, made of kissing and never wanting to stop.

Everyone's gone, but I close our door just to press her against it, and the sound she makes along my lips is so fervent I feel it resonate in each of my ribs.

I feel like I can't kiss her deeply enough. The back of my mind is thinking I should slow down, but she's holding onto me like she can't either, and it feels so fucking good to give love what she needs.

"Are you still dizzy?" I ask, forehead on hers, hips below her hips – the center of all that's most sacred to me pressed against the bottom of my stomach instead of where I need her most.

Bella nods, watching my eyes. Hers shine as I guide her head all the way back, and her smile opens with a breath under mine.

"Can I spin you harder?" I ask, lashes low and whispering lower, so sore to push where my heart's beating into soft, soft sunshine.

"Mhmm," she nods, securing her arms around my neck. "Yes, yes..."

Permission between her lips, behind her teeth and on her tongue makes my pulse kick like a bass drum. Every beat drops heavily to the two syllables of her name, coursing through me and crowding together between my hips. I'm so hard my cock feels like a weight, and I want to give it to her so fucking badly.

_I'd help her take it._

_I'd help Bella through anything._

I want everything with her.

_Everything._

Eyes barely open, I place my right hand carefully on her side and brace my left on the door above her shoulder to keep her from sliding up as I step forward. The most stellar smile opens wider as love takes a deep breath, delicate lashes fluttering as I steady my feet. The nearness moves her body down mine, and when my girl is where I need her, I can't keep from sinking forward.

Back pressed against our door, Bella's head falls forward to my shoulder, and she makes a sound that's all longing. She clings to me like I'm everything, and I feel her tummy still tickling and her heart beating just like mine. Between her fingers in my hair and her breath on my neck, my blood sings. My cock feels like it throbs, and the toes of my shoes bump our door as I try to step closer.

I need to be.

I want under her skin so fucking bad.

Love that makes my heart wild keens under my ear.

"I can't help it," I whisper, burying my face in her neck and my weight between her legs, so caught up. "You're so pretty like this, Bella. You're so fucking, _fucking_ pretty..."

Summertime sings, and all I am is love that aches to give and fill and flow inside sunlight.

I lift my hips, and warm breath under my ear calls me back. I return heavier, and Bella's heartbeat races while her legs fall open.

"Fuck." It comes out when I breathe in love's innocent instinct to let me inside.

My girl can barely breathe, but she's saying _please_ with her whole body, and I'm made of innocent instinct, too.

"Fuck, Bella," it comes out again as I lift and push harder, feeling how my girl can barely breathe because she's pleading with her whole body.

"Fuck," I groan, rocking as slowly as I can stand to.

"Fuck, fuck, baby, girl, fuck -" Sliding my hand to Bella's hip, I angle her right under me and hold her still there so she can feel what we both need.

Tiny whimpers chase tinier gasps, and I don't have to see love smiling to know she is. I hear her.

Kissing with the very lightest scrape of teeth over her earlobe, I push forward into nearness that makes her open further, and lets me fit better, and sends us both spinning.

Singing under my ear and letting me move us, love's little waves of surrender are slipping between every breath, and I want to tell her I'm here, and she's only mine. I want to assure her it's okay, and she feels so good. I want to steady her with my voice, but all I can do is move.

Keeping her braced and lifted, I drag teeth and lips to the side of her open smile, and lean all my gravity into her. It breaks her voice before it's out of her throat, and the sound that floats from her lips to mine is desperate, shivering and hopeful and so fucking sexy.

I want to tell her to open her eyes, to look at me, but I'm still made only of movement. So, I dig through denim instead, stroking two years of patience, passion and burnished fucking yearning against so-cherished, so-chaste sex instead.

Bella's lips open into a petal-pink circle_,_ and her lashes flutter up, showing me overflowing faith.

Eyes on hers, anchoring love to love with all the passion my pulse flows from, I rock slower, harder, the same way I would if there was nothing between us. I move steadily and purposefully, determined to show her how deep this can go, how good it's going to be, and she opens to let me.

"Fuck, baby," I groan, dropping my forehead to hers. I'm trying to hold on for both of us, but I can't even hold my eyes open. The tightness in my stomach twists tighter with every push, and my heartbeat's pounding just as loudly in my eardrums as it is brimming in my cock. I can feel it: the want to move and fill, and overfill, burning into the need to come and come, and come. It's so strong it's dizzying, and it isn't just me.

"I feel you," I promise, pushing slower, heavier so that I'm all the way against and aching to get completely between. Her chin shakes and her legs tremble around me. Cherished fingers curl into my hair, trying to pull me closer while love rocks her hips in natural, helplessly pleading little tilts.

"All around me," I whisper, pressing forward to give her more. "I can feel you all fucking over me, Bella. I feel you, girl, and I'm right here. I'm right here, baby. Right here..."

We push and rock, and ride together.

We kiss and grip, and I lift her higher.

And the need to be and slide and come inside this love is taxing my ability to stand and see straight.

I can't hear anything but breathless little pleas, and I can't feel anything but so fucking close.

Pinning Bella between our door and the weight of my heartbeats, I uncross her wrists from the back of my neck and open curled-up fingers to bend mine between them. Palm to palm tightly under mine, summertime sighs and I press the backs of her hands over her head, wordlessly clear in my want to try.

Her sounds don't change, but she ducks a little.

It's the smallest movement, but it's loud as a siren to my heart.

My stomach clenches and burns, and my dick fucking aches as my bones brace to straighten in the midst of unreadiness.

Tulip shakes her head as I tense up and slow down, though. She brushes her lips from my mine to my chin, to my neck. Nuzzling with her nose and sweetly hungering kisses, she sends my pulse from the brakes into overdrive.

The most important hands cup the corners of my jaw, and I tilt my head back for clavicle and Adam's apple kisses. Securing her legs around my waist, shifting in the ease I've given, Bella covers my collarbones with yearningly adoring kisses, tugging lightly on my collar with her right hand and sliding her left down the front of my tee-shirt. My heart skips with anticipation, and the contact her fingers make with the bottom of my stomach is still more than it can handle. She opens her fingers there, and the press-slide of her palm along my skin makes my heart trip and fall so hard gravity can't hold me. I sink so heavily she slides up our door.

Both our lips open for the sound love makes. My shirt comes up with her left hand, and I hold her in place with my hips long enough to pull tee-shirt cotton over my head. Both her hands are on my skin then, and I love when she touches me. I fucking

_love_

the way this girl touches me.

I want to tell her, but with her hands on my chest, holding the life I'd give for her in palms I fall deeper for with every touch, I can't find my voice. I can't find or feel anything but the miracle she is.

Forehead in her neck, breathing in laurel and vanilla and girl, I place both hands over her shoulders and step close again, talking to her with heavily slow strokes between her legs. Eyes closed, I slide into every movement, and bask in her touch.

Heaven is up, up, all the way up, and I could come just like this.

Just from her touch.

I could.

Tulip kisses from my chin to my sternum, though, and my eyes open as my heart races with recognition and understanding.

She wakes me like this sometimes, in the middle of the night. All nestling open lips and tracing, trailing fingertips, she kisses from the corner of my mouth down to where I'm always so hard, and shows me love with the most worshipful kisses.

But never like this.

She curls low at my side and kisses my ache slow and deep in our bed between dreams. Daylight's never touched this admiration, and I've never stood above my girl.

When I lean up and turn around, though, she slides from my arms and my stomach goes right with her. When I place bare feet on our floor, she shifts so effortlessly from her soles to her knees that my own almost give out.

Shuffling a few steps back, my shoulders hit our door, and our whole room sways when she touches my belt. Her fingers tugging leather from my buckle make my ankles shake, but I don't take my hands from her hair or my eyes from hers.

Summertime doesn't bat her lashes or bite her lip. She looks up with entirely openhearted eyes, wanting me to see her smile when she kisses the bottom of my stomach, just above my jeans.

She wants to give me this.

Little Tulip with the daffodil cup laugh, loves giving me this.

I can't blink, and lips I can't close are dry with breaths I can barely breathe as she opens both sides of my belt. My calves shake with my ankles and my head falls back, heavy under the weight of lashes I can't keep up. I feel both of her hands cup me, though, rubbing the shape of me through my jeans, and my eyes open to hers again.

I want to swallow so I can breathe, but my throat is too full of my pulse for air to get through.

Eyes on mine, setting sunlight and the wild sweet pea breeze all around us, Bella brushes small kisses so soft it's not even close to fair across the bottom of my stomach. She uses both hands to palm everything she can of my cock, and my voice comes out in a broken groan.

"Bella -"

She smiles higher, her breath warming where she's kissed.

_Worthy_, her eyes promise so lovingly, and I know even as she drops them, her heart is parted just as open as her smile. Just for me.

In a smooth beat, she lifts white sweater cotton over her head and drops it next to mine, looking up at me. I recognize her smile and this trust, but I've never seen this much of love before. Her light pink bikini is barely darker than her blush, and her skin looks so fucking warm. Softly full tits rise and fall with deeper little **es breaths as I move my fingers to the bow on the back of her neck. I want to pull the string, and with any other girl I wouldn't hesitate, but I just trace the knot holding her top in place while Tulip undoes button after button of my fly.

I have to shift my feet for balance.

Opening both sides of my jeans with ease and grace only love can move with, mine gives me both palms again over nothing but thinly-knit black cotton.

I can barely breathe under my pulse as Bella calls my eyes back with staggeringly soft kisses, and seeing her, radiating warmer and brighter than the light around us, I feel like my heart beats too deeply. As she pushes boxers and jeans gently down, and touches my bare cock I don't know how my legs remain standing.

Kissing my hip, holding my eyes, she strokes slowly. Helpless for her touch and weak with instinct, I can't keep from lifting. She draws soft, pretty circles with soft, pretty thumbs slowly around the head, and I moan. I pant like a fucking teenager, and my arms shake. My stomach knots, and my heart throbs in love's palms. When she draws another soft, slow circle, and kisses with parted lips just under the tip, I leak for her. I can't even help it. I'm so hard, but the head of my cock is intensely fucking sensitive.

When she brings me to parted lips and her waiting, so-pink tongue, I swear my heart attacks. It wants up and out and in love's mouth too.

Sliding my hands from her bow and up into her ponytail, working my fingers under and loosing it, I groan as Bella gives me the softest, most generous kind of kiss. My pulse throbs, and with softly dark, summer-sun-lit hair down in my hands and kissed-so-pink lips holding barely more than the head of me, love looks up, and my knees go weak. Chasing my breath with a groan, I lean all my balance back into my shoulders, against our door and my girl follows, drawing _fuck_ from my chest with the softest, sweetest, most open little hum.

It's one syllable, airy and stripped between lips I can't close, but it takes forever to come all the way up from my lungs. Her slow kiss to take me deeper unfurls the single word from me like it's a fucking ribbon, rough and endless and as red as the heart that warmed it.

Lowering her lashes, Bella slides her hands from pushed-down denim up to my hips, brushing love with her fingers while she moves her tongue like she wants to lick her lips, and there are no words.

I want there to be. I want to tell her how fucking good she looks and feels and is, but she's moving her tongue like she wants to lick her lips again, and I'm nothing but a mess of breathless, stuttering thanks and praise.

"So fuck.. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking good. So fucking, good, Bella. Bella... Fucking... God, so fucking good, baby. Fuck, just like that. Just like that, baby. Suck... Suck just like that, Bella... Fuck, baby..."

Weak in the knees, blissed so far the fuck out I can barely breathe, I don't know anything but how pink love's lips look holding me, the sound of her so gratefully glad to give, and the way my cock feels on her tongue.

When she lifts her lashes again, and wraps her right hand around what she can't take, I recognize the look in her eyes and wrap my hand around hers, around me.

My head falls back. For a second, I can't even process this touch, this love, how fucking good she feels, but I don't want to miss it. I lift my head and force my eyelids up.

Dark eyes so full of thankful love, watching mine while I stroke my cock with her, right down into her mouth and onto her soft fucking tongue, Tulip smiles. Her lips don't stop. She sucks so sincerely I can barely stand, but she smiles. It's in her look. And her blush. And the way she hums -

"Jesus, baby, girl, fuck, fuck... Bella... Fuck..."

I'm so caught the fuck up I don't really hear the front door open and close a floor below us, but Bella does. When she pauses with surprised eyes, suddenly shy, I hear Senna laughing and Doe panicking, but not really, and I don't know why they're back.

Until Doe's on the steps.

"Bella? Bella, are you here?"

Tucking myself carefully away, swallowing hard before exhaling as much of the sting as I can, I help Bella up and kiss so-fucking-pink lips, promising it's okay.

"Bella? I need your help. My contact's on the back of my eye and I'm freaking out."


	6. six

A little more than twenty-four hours later, Bella's curling her hair at our bathroom sink. She's on tiptoes in those little high-waisted shorts, and I'm leaning in the doorway with a glass of fresh sangria while her best friend smokes a joint in our tub.

There's no water in it. Doe's dressed. I'm half listening to their conversation, but really, I just can't take my eyes off little tiptoes.

I grin into a drink while love rocks on bare little soles, carefully unrolling another curl. Her head's tilted shyly, but her smile's high, and her legs look so good. I want to touch the backs of her knees so fucking badly.

She glances up in the mirror, and her look is flirtier than Cupid's arrow. She's so excited she's glowing. It's why I can't stop looking, and probably why Doe's here, too.

It's been like this since _good morning_.

Stopping last night left me sore, but it didn't deter my smile or how high I was on hers. While Bella helped her friend, I brought her book in from the roundabout, and asked when we were alone again if I could pick up where she'd left off.

She loved me reading her to sleep.

Out of her bikini and into the tee-shirt she'd taken off me earlier, she turned on her nightlight and curled into my side under our blankets. The weight of need in me ached, but the feel of love finding her place right over my heart and drifting down it, was all-encompassingly good.

I woke in rainbow lit dark to her nuzzling nose and parted lips melting kisses along my collarbones, down my sternum and across my chest. She lingered lovingly over a pulse that's truly hers, and when parted lips started following soft fingertips down my stomach, I turned onto my back to let her touch and feel and find her way so lovingly all the way down to where I still ached.

We move at Tulip's pace, and even though she lets me feel little belly butterflies sometimes, even though I've seen tiny pink tips plead for contact through my tee-shirts, and I've felt how so-ready she is when I move between her legs, I've never actually laid my hands or eyes on her most precious parts.

Love's more than familiar with my whole body, though.

I was hesitant the first time she woke me that way. I was hard just from holding her, just from sharing blankets and a bed, and closeness I'd wanted for so long, but I didn't want to be anything like anyone in her life before. I didn't want her mouth on me out of guilt or some fucked up sense of obligation, but it wasn't like that at all. There's only gladness and gratitude in the way her tongue moves and her lips hold, and when she curls between my knees like that -

I love that Bella counts on me for every ounce of care and control I'm made of. I love her trust in my strength, but I'm more than content to let her take her time showing me love. I touch her hair and cheeks while she kisses me. I tell her she's my girl, and that she's so fucking pretty, and so fucking good. I remind her to breathe when her affection gets so passionate she almost can't, and I'm usually just moans by then, but I let her lead. I grip sheets through the urge to lift my hips, and groan her name through coming, and coming.

Unable to control my grin, I take a deeper drink of sangria.

Tulip likes to hear how I feel, more so than I ever knew, but her cheeks might never un-blush if I told her how much I know she loves not just putting her mouth on me, but keeping her mouth on me when I can't hold back. She does, though. She loves when I give her my come. She hums through every so-fucking-soft swallow, and I know the sound of my girl's smile by heart.

I was still lit in the afterglow of her affection when little summertime woke me this morning, sunlight shining all around us and her smile twice as bright.

"I want to go tonight," she told me between playfully pulled up sheets, tented up and floating down around us between kisses. "To Maggie's party. I want to go with you guys."

Maggie's here for the summer, too. It's _her_ birthday, but Bella never comes out, and everybody's digging that she's coming out, no one more than myself. Watching the edges of her comfort zone stretch out is amazing. I'm not foolish enough to think her scars have just up and disappeared, but I can see wholesome love growing in her heart, slowly but surely healing what love once meant to it.

She looks like anything could happen.

And like she really, really wants it to.

The breeze rolling through our bedroom is cool with the promise of rain. I don't know if or when it will, but I pull a dark grey sweatshirt over my tee-shirt and drop the hood back. This way I at least have it to give to Bella, if it does rain.

Downstairs, she doesn't take the same shots we all do, but she does let me give her shotguns on the way to Maggie's.

With Senna, Mackenna and Mikey in the car ahead of us, we're in the backseat behind Doe and Paul, and when I nudge soft curls aside with my nose to blow smoke under her ear, she tilts her head instead and finds my eyes. Made up only with summerkissed blush and so many sun freckles, little tiptoe through the tulips smiles timidly. I blow smoke down toward our laps instead of her neck, I'm sort of confused, and a little distracted by all the so bright excitement and glowing hope in her eyes. It turns on my want to kiss and be kissed, but her whisper steadies me.

"Can I have some?" She asks, watching me watch her. "From you, I mean..."

I smile so wide.

"Just a little," she whispers as I pull another hit. "So we match."

I nod. I hear her, and I've got her, and I pull another hit. Everything else fades out as I cup her cheek with one hand and lay my other gently over her chest to feel her lungs expand. Her giggle lets smoke out, and she kisses me nose to nose, and I'm so fucking lifted on this girl I feel like I'm glowing, too.

When the joint circles back around, I give her another hit, and we make it to Maggie's when it's still relatively quiet.

While the girls do their thing, I hang back in the kitchen with Paul. He pours two glasses of Sailor Jerry and ginger lemonade, and as more people start showing up, we move. I catch up with friends I didn't see last night, and refill my glass each time I empty it, but I stay close to where I can keep my eyes on little glow.

I know everyone here. I wouldn't bring her anywhere any kind of even a little bit shady, but my gut and my heart both say _stay close_.

I do.

And it's so good to have her here, to see and hear her happy here.

When music starts, love on her tiptoes meets my eyes across the living room, and I know it's too loud. As she moves, I make my way to follow her out back.

There are people out here, too, but it's not nearly as loud, and Tulip looks instantly twice as at ease.

With the almost full moon so high and the sky full of stars, Bella reaches for my free hand when _Stir It Up _comes on.

I beam.

I swear I do.

Pressed close, we sway to the beat on the edge of the crowd. I bend my knees to kiss her smile, and between the breeze and her giggles, I don't want to ever let go, but Daft Punk follows Bob Marley, and little darling's best friend is at her side then, asking if she can cut in.

More people come outside, and I pull from a jar of moonshine with Mackenna and Mikey while Doe and Bella dance like they're up all night to get lucky, and in the deepest part of my heart, I think maybe, just maybe, she is.

There's no set date or time for anything, no rules, just feeling. I know love won't give in to any amount of longing on my part or her own until she's ready with her entire self, and if she is -

_If tonight's that night -_

My legs fucking tingle, and my heart lays down a bass beat so deep it's hard to breathe.

Even fleetingly, just imagining being inside her, actually moving infuckingside little sunshine is body, heart and soul overwhelming.

More and more people arrive and gather together as the moon climbs higher. It's not very late, half past midnight when Bella nods at me across the packed backyard. Dark eyes are still glowing brightly, but she's ready to go, and I nod back, motioning toward the house while my heart floods my veins.

The walk home isn't far, maybe a couple miles if that. I just want to let Paul know we're leaving.

Love nods back. With her best friend on her right, she lifts her left hand in Senna's to show me she's okay.

It takes me a minute to shoulder through everyone, but I'm not actually in the house ten seconds before I regret it.

There's a crash and cursing commotion outside, and I'm trying to turn around and head toward it, but so is the entire party. It takes me another ten seconds more than I'd like just to get back out the door.

My eyes dart and scan the crowd for my girl.

Twenty feet or so away, two bulky frat-motherfuckers are the center of everyone's attention. I don't recognize them, but one has beer spilled down the front of his polo, and his friend's holding him back while across from them, Mackenna and Doe are struggling to hold Senna back the same way.

"Fucking dykes," the shaved ape with the popped collar spits. "Shouldn't put it all out there if she don't want the fucking attention -"

I step reflexively closer, but little elbows push through the crowd, and love all but falls at my feet.

"Baby -" I drop to catch her stumble, but little knees are already scraped and small palms are grassy dirty. She clings to me, trembling so hard I can practically smell her fear.

And it makes me want to fucking draw and quarter these assholes.

"Are you okay?" I ask, bending my knees, cupping her face. "Come here, baby. Let me see," I whisper, wanting her eyes.

Nodding in my hands, she shows me tear-glossy, fear-swelled eyes before burying her face in my chest again.

"I'm okay," she tells me. "I'm okay. I just fell. I'm okay."

But I know just falling didn't shake her this hard. She's trying to be strong, but the presence of angry violence and the unpredictability of strangers is fucking with her.

I want to step up and finish the fight, but Paul catches Senna when she breaks free.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the music's back up and the crowd's relaxing. I still feel like setting some primates straight, but just barely, bravely opened little love is shaken up enough as it is, and I just want to get out of here.

And this motherfucker just can't keep his mouth shut.

"What a fucking waste of pussy," he laughs, intentionally loud enough for everyone to hear. "You know you need some dick sometime, girl."

And that's it.

The fire in me to fight over any and everything has dimmed considerably since I found love. I don't know who this idiot's words were for, but it doesn't matter. They're kerosene all over that flame. Bella makes me want to be better, and I am, but enough is fucking enough. Tucking my girl safely between our best friends, I'm a rush of strides straight toward the dipshit that caused her fall.

I don't say anything as I grip his collar in my left hand and connect my right fist to his mouth. I hit him three times before his legs give out and I let him crumble.

It happens so fast. It's kind of disappointing. It's not enough, but he's down, and adrenaline is coursing through me with nowhere to go now.

I turn, but his friend wants nothing to do with it.

So I turn again, walking, shaking blood from where I hit some teeth off my knuckles. I wipe them on my jeans as I head for my girl.

She's shaken, but she doesn't cower as I gather her to myself. She clings ten times tighter now.

Unwilling to wait for the car or sit still in it, I walk.

I don't know how much Doe knows and how much she just infers, but to everyone else, Bella's a normal nineteen year old with a shy disposition who came out to a party and maybe has just had enough for one night. And she has, but my heart's beating too fast with the half of it no one else knows. I'm trying not to let my mind go into the dark I know she's trying even harder not to let have her, and all I can do is tighten my hold. I hold her tighter than maybe I ever have, because I want my arms to do what she believes they can.

Securing my left around her waist, I cradle the back of her head in my right hand, slowing my stride so she can better keep up.

"I'm okay," love assures me so quietly, her voice muffled by how closely she's pressing herself.

My nerves throb with my pulse and my muscles are tight with tension, but her strength is easily twice mine.

"Good," I whisper, keeping her head tucked over my heart and my nose and lips in her hair. "Stay with me, girl."

With the brush of steady comfort between her shoulders and over the small of her back, and the help of gently encouraged deeper breaths, Bella's hard shakes ease into soft shivers. Anxiousness is unwilling to let her completely go, but I'm not going to either. And fear has nothing on love.

Our closest friends are gathered downstairs when we get home, but Bella's grip doesn't loosen. She doesn't unhide her face from my chest at the sound of concerned voices, and I don't feel particularly social either. I lift my hand from her back in a small wave to say goodnight, and we head upstairs together.

My nerves relax a little inside our bedroom, and a little more in our bathroom as I set her on the counter. Adrenaline and intuition are still coursing through me, but walking definitely helped. I'm far less concerned with retribution and solely focused on love now.

She sniffs as I stand straight between dangling legs, but her eyes are tear-free when she looks up.

"I'm sorry," she mouths more than whispers, wiping her eyes and pushing loose curls from her face.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," I whisper back, shaking my head and kissing the top of hers.

Bella nods, reaching both hands for mine in the thin bit of space between us. She paces her breaths, and I curve my fingers between hers, and kiss her thumb knuckles.

"Can I clean your knees?" I ask, watching her eyes and measuring her balance.

She nods again, swallowing with effort as she uncurves our fingers to hold the edge of the counter.

Her hands don't stay there, though.

As I kneel, unbuckling little sandals, bringing a warm washcloth to dirty scrapes, Tulip holds loosely to my shoulders. It's the smallest, most innocent kind of contact, but it calms me from the inside. By the time I'm patting her legs dry and placing a little blue band-aid over her left kneecap, my pulse is almost placid.

Bella's calmed down, too. When I kiss the baby blue bandage, she even gives me a smile.

It's small, but my heart beats for it.

Standing again, I turn the faucet on and bring my favorite hands underneath it. I make bubbles in my own and spread them over precious palms, so thankful there are no cuts there. I lean my face into the crown of her hair, and she smells like pear shampoo and vanilla soap, like blueberry kush and wild sweet pea and the rainy breeze. She smells like today, and always, and it makes my heart brim with so much love it aches with need to be given.

Drying our hands before lifting her from the counter, we walk from the bathroom hand in hand. When I stop at our dresser to flip her nightlight on, she tugs my fingers, shaking her head like it's okay.

Like she doesn't need it.

Just me.

When we fold down into bed together, I kick my shoes off with my feet while Tulip nestles all the way into her place at my side. Our tension doesn't completely dissipate, but so much of it comes apart between cool pillows and sheets. I'm miles from sleep, but being wrapped around the sound and touch and feel of love to me, home to me, my miracle, in the safest place she can be, is all I need.


	7. seven

A warm little hum that sinks easily through my chest and surrounds my heart in pure warmth wakes me from sleep. Before I'm aware of anything else, I know I'm in love.

Breathing deeply through my nose, I know it's raining before my ears recognize the sound of it, the same way I know it's morning before I open my eyes.

To find my love.

Still asleep.

On my back with my arms around her and hers around me, her little knee bent over my hip, I go still. I'm never awake before Bella, and I can't see her face, but wrapped in her this way everything feels so serene it's like she can't even be real. Dreamy-steady breaths sound too good to be true, and I can feel her heart pulsing at ease against the side of my ribcage.

Fear all gone.

Totally calm.

My heart fucking sings, and I smile so wide I feel it behind my eyes.

She's just sleeping, but it's so much more than that. It's love knowing on every level, in the deepest, darkest, most unconscious place inside herself, that she's safe with me.

My smile parts for a breath my lungs need, and I want so much to stay wrapped in this perfect, tangible trust forever, but I don't have the control over my heart that I do over all my other muscles. It's wide awake in loving, and rousing little peaceful from her sleep.

She hums again as she stretches out and curls closer, and I want her just-opened eyes. I want to lay mine on the shape my favorite sound makes.

She giggles as I gather her up and turn us so I'm above her, wrapped in all the soft-blushing beauty good morning is made of. Thoughts of last night flit through my mind, but they blur away in the presence of pure joy. Looking down at her, I don't know where all the tension went, but it doesn't matter. I'm in awe as she yawns through upturned lips, sleepy and so completely at ease while early light and cool wind float through our windows with the sound of rain.

An overwhelming rush of thankfulness for this place, this moment, this person rolls through me, and I sink onto my side, curving her closer to me on hers.

"Good morning," I tell her blush and freckles. "Good morning," I whisper to the side of her smile. "Good morning," I kiss her nose. "Good morning."

Cupping my face, Bella brings my eyes to hers, holding me in love.

"Good morning," she tells me so quietly, all pink-peach cheeks and sunny-mahogany waves surrounded by cream-white sheets and pillows. "Good morning," she shines, the softest kind of vibrance. "Good morning," she whispers, smiling higher while bright eyes glint.

She runs her fingers through my hair, and my lids dip closed.

_So good._

_So fucking good._

"Kiss me good morning, boy," she whispers, calling me back to her.

Giving her smile the open curve of mine, I show good morning all the passionate patience love is made of.

Humming and kissing and twisting together through tangled blankets and clothes we slept in, we seek to get closer, to better feel, to revel in. We tussle back and forth, above and underneath and all along.

In love with looking up at her, I relax on my back and she lays her head over my chest. I stretch my arms and legs, and she smiles out loud when my heart and lungs shape a yawn just under her ear. It lights her up, and I love her just like this.

Rolling so I'm above her again, I smile over Bella's ear while she wraps me in limbs just as soft as her laughter.

"Yawn, sleepy girl," I tell her, wanting to know the sound and exact shape of hers now too, the same as she knows mine.

"I don't have to," she giggles.

"Yawn, baby," I coax playfully, kissing the tender spot just under and behind her earlobe. "Yawn, pretty summertime. Soft little sunshine, c'mon. Yawn, girl. Let me feel you."

She can't help her eventual inhale, and even though she's giggling through it, I press my ear to her chest.

"Shhh," I tease, smiling, beyond enamored with the sound of so-alive love.

She hums contentedly through the end of the best yawn ever, and I kiss her through last night's blouse. Sliding my hands to her sides, I touch slowly as I lean up and look down.

"Can I take this off you?" I ask, watching her shine.

Summer warm and morning sweet, she answers with a higher smile. Leaning up, she dips warm fingertips just below the edge of my hoodie and the tee-shirt under it, and I rock instinctively.

_There it is._

All of last night's tension is far from gone. It's just concentrated itself a place we can only reach together. Burning warm and heavily magnetic, the want to fight has grown into the need to love, and it's impossible to keep from leaning into.

Grinning under eyes I've closed again, I lick my lips, forgetting I'd only just asked a question until she's repeating it back to me.

"Can I take _this_ off _you_?" she asks, playfully bold while she slides hands I adore up my sides.

I'm nodding before I open my eyes, and my heart beats harder as she lifts my shirts. I bring love up and take hers, too. She isn't wearing a bra, but a thin, barely pink camisole rides up as we move, showing me the smoothest little dip of skin just below her belly button, and I can't help laying my hand there.

Sighing the most open little note, Bella slides back into blankets, curving up for more of my touch.

Pouring in with the sound of summer rain, shy sunlight grows brighter, lighting everything with soft white morning, and I want it all over the girl who can't stop smiling.

Placing my left hand in our bed, right over her shoulder, I flatten my palm and spread my fingers over her stomach, and watch love long to come undone. She lifts as I touch higher, nudging pink slowly up as I go, and her butterflies swoop and dip as I go lower, to the top of soft denim. Lashes flutter over touch-tipsy eyes, and I press my fingertips over the button of her shorts, rubbing with slow pressure, watching her spin.

"Can I take these off, too, baby?" Even as I nudge knees gently more open with my own so I can fit my reason for asking better against her, I know she wants me to.

Low-lidded eyes on mine, she nods.

I was only asking to hear her _yes_, but Tulip spins me in turn.

"Can I take these off you?" She asks, breathlessly brave, cheeky and precious and made of innocent desire as she glances up. Dark eyes are so dark and pink cheeks are so fucking pink. I can't close my mouth, but for a second I can't even breathe. She's gliding her palm back and forth over my buckle, along the top of my own denim, and I'm rocking again.

I groan without intention or air as I nod, my lids falling as low as hers look while I use both hands to unbutton her shorts.

I'm trying to go slow, but everything feels just as natural as it does new. I'm riding with love, not guiding her, and when she slides her hands into my jeans, I shift my grip to little hips.

Warm wind and warmer light roll in as we move together, undone and glowing. My lids lift, and I shift my hands to our bed, bracing myself over Bella while her hands slide between us, touching, feeling between achingly hard and so fucking soft.

I groan, and summertime brings her lips to mine, giving me everything I need to breathe. I slide slower, harder, pressing the backs of her hands insistently against barely covered sex. Cupping, rubbing, loving palms and two layers of cotton separate us, but I can feel her soft little ache, yearning-hot and and sweetly-burning. I feel how much she needs me there, and I move impulsively heavier against the only hands I want on me ever again.

Rocking underneath me, love's caught up, but far from lost.

"Off," she breathes between kisses, barely under shallow breaths and hot along my lips. "Off..." Keeping her right hand cupped and rubbing, she works my hips into a strenuous slow grind while her left pushes at my jeans.

Blinking to focus, I nod as I lean all the way into gravity just for a second before turning, pushing and pulling at denim.

She's above me now, and pure morning light loves Bella almost as much as I do. Settling her weight right where we need it most, she smiles through an inhale that fills her chest up.

"You -" she starts to say, pausing because when she puts her palms on my stomach I lift, and she smiles so high a laugh comes out. She hums, blushing deeper as she gathers mostly undone curls over her shoulder. Rainy fresh sunrise clings to her skin, and with more instinct than I've ever touched her with, I slide pale pink cotton up her side.

I want to bathe this girl in morning light, and I want to swim in her.

She halts my hand just under her arm, but just to pause for breath.

"You look so good in our sheets," she finishes, looking at me with all the same want and wonder and willingness I carry for her.

A rush of pride rolls through me. My smile grows, and little good morning can't help glowing as she rocks with me. Her look dips and lilts as I brush my thumb under her top, back and forth below the curve of her breast, but she keeps her eyes on mine.

Beautiful, so beloved bravery moves through her and in-between us, and she nods, pushing thin pink cotton higher with my hand.

Sunny brown, sleepy-loose waves fall around her face as we lift it away, but she doesn't hide. She lets rain-soft light kiss perfect curves and welcomes my eyes to touch tips so desperately pink they're closer to red.

They're not.

They're just so fucking pink, and her trust, her want for me to see and love her exactly as I have for so long makes my hips lift higher as I slide my hands up never-so-touched skin. She tilts into my rocking as I brush my thumbs over pretty curves, tracing slow circles around her, drawing the most shameless little sounds from her lips.

"So fucking sexy," I whisper, airless as I cup her tits together and circle my thumbs tighter, wanting more of those notes.

Bella gives them, twice as sweet as they are soft, and my chest tightens with too many beats. All my muscles tense, and the pit of my stomach twists two years of longing-love with the natural need to give all that I am to it.

I try to slow down. There's so much innocent newness here I want to worship and savor and draw all the way out into tonight, and tomorrow, forever, but soft pink summertime has me by heartstrings tied to instincts. Sweet sounds and the prettiest tits, and pleading, needful little hips have the pith of me wrapped around her every breath.

Sliding her hands from her hair, she lays them on mine, cupping and lifting, feeling and holding with me.

"I want you," she tells me, soft as the rain. "I want you so much."

They're so shaky-quiet they're barely words at all, but the delicate love notes she passes me between breaths are strong enough set fire to my heart. It stretches wide and burns wild, and it's so hers.

"You have me," I promise, leaning up, bringing her down, my hands all down her sides and back, back on her tits and down, around her hips. "I'm only yours, Bella. All yours."

Nose to nose, breasts to my chest, all rocking, riding, brand new contact wrapped in wholly familiar fondness, she doesn't stop or falter, but she shakes her head.

"I want..." Dropping her face to my neck, Tulip seeks both my hands and curves her fingers between mine, pushing our arms into pillows the same way I did hers the other day. I lift her from our bed with my hips, ever in love with the feel of her wanting and trying and so desperate to balance all her precious need on me.

I can't open my eyes and I can't close my lips. I can't get enough. The so-open softness of her sex is so achingly fucking close it's dizzying.

I lift higher and rock needfully into her, pushing so high I see stars shaped like daffodil cups.

Nothing has ever or could compare to this glow of a girl, riding me, surrounding me like morning sun and summer rain at the same time. This is the absence of fear, and it's bountiful on every level. It's the heart and soul of love made physical, sensual, grippable and kissable and fillable. There is nothing anywhere as overwhelmingly, all-encompassingly soft as this.

Until my favorite sound melts into my skin.

"I want _you_, Masen," she whispers, her meaning clear as mountain now. "I wanted you last night. I want you forever..."

Love that's kept me hard for two years turns my heart on just as fully, and my hips dip.

Just for a second.

So I can lift again and push higher, all the way up.

"Yes," Little summertime sings so softly, nodding her head, rolling all her dainty weight into each of my movements like there's nothing better or more right or more natural in the world. "Please, please, yes."

Swelled over and just as endlessly fervent to fuck as every other part of myself, my soul follows my heart, and my whole world with it. This girl, loving this girl and feeling her love me turns everything I am on. It straightens and strengthens my spine and reinforcing the tension in all my muscles, and intricately increases the beat in my chest that guides all movement.

Kissing the top of love's shoulder, I brush my thumbs over her hands and bring her left between us with my right. I go to place her palm on my hip, and mine on hers, to brush through thin cotton and show her where I am, where we're going, but she tightens our fingers.

"I want, um," she pauses to swallow, and I blink, forcing my consciousness to focus. Keeping her lifted, pressed so deeply close, I let her put words together.

"I want you to touch me first," she whispers, leaning up to rest her forehead on mine.

I'm confused.

I want that, too, so fucking bad -

"_You_," she whispers in the lightest moan, sliding unmistakably along my ache. "I want to feel... _You, Masen_..."

A groan comes up from so deep in me I feel it shake my foundation, and Bella brings her soft pink mouth to my unclosing lips. Begging for the place the sound came from, her heartbeat races against my chest while shy little notes melt between kisses.

"Is that okay?" She asks, holding tightly to my hands, opening eyes that open mine and finding strength she craves there. "I don't want some slow, scary ceremony... I just want you... On me... With me..."

It's hard for Tulip to articulate, but I hear her, and my grin grows at how good it feels to be what love wants and have what love needs.

And I want to keep love

right

here.

As I bring her hands to my shoulders, Bella lets go of my fingers to brace herself against stronger muscle. Physical trust draws another groan from me, and I take her hips in both hands, stroking her all the way down my cock.

"This?" I ask, my voice low along the side of her mouth. "You just want this?"

Gasping against my cheek, she nods without hesitation while a tight little tremble rolls through her.

Kissing the corner of her lips, I drag my nose up and smile against her blush.

"My girl," I whisper, feeling more little trembles chase the first one. "You can't even help it, can you?"

Bare knees dig against our sheets, desperate to open wider while she shakes through quick little breaths. I chase them with my voice, just as determined to keep her with me as she is to open completely.

"You just want me inside so badly, don't you, little glow?"

Tiny sighs break into a needy cry as Bella's eyelids dip, her chin and bottom lip quivering as she clings to my shoulders, letting me move her how I know she needs to be moved. Smiling under all my favorite sounds, I lower my words to the barest whispers.

"You want my cock so much you can't even wait for my fingers, can you?" I ask, soaking in her through two layers of cotton. "You want just my cock, Bella? You want all my love, right here, baby?"

"Yes," she whispers, trying to breathe through spinning. "Love me. Love me right here, right here -"

And I'm turning us.

That cherished point of no return, if there is one, is all around us. Love that slept in my arms and woke for my heartbeat, love that trusts me with her whole life to do anything and be everything for her is so close I can feel it with every one of my senses, and I want to fuck her all the way through it.

All blushing pink and red-pink, and naked, summer-kissed peach-pink, Tulip melts like a florid little flame into cream white sheets as I lay her down in our bed. Soft lashes and softer lips remain helplessly-barely open as she combs free fingers through sunlightened waves. I kneel between legs that make mine shake inside, and push boxer-briefs away.

"You want it so much you asked for it, girl," I whisper, still in turned-on awe that she did. I smile as all-the-way-openhearted eyes glance between mine and my right hand, where I'm unable to keep from gripping and stroking myself over where she's still covered. She's pink here, too. Baby pink cotton is darker pink where she's aching for me, and I can see the shape of bare lips underneath.

"You asked so fucking sweetly for my cock, Bella," I whisper, stroking slower, closer to her. "Of course you can have it, baby."

Her neck arches as her eyes fall closed, and I press the head of myself against sodden cotton, making bright eyes open again.

"Here, little Tulip?" I ask, nudging her legs gently further apart with my left hand while I stroke with my right, watching her lids lift so wide for me.

Unable to catch her breath, she reaches with both hands and presses my cock more fully against herself, using her touch to shape the _yes _her lungs and lips can't.

Made of a pulse that's made of increasingly deeper beats, I shift my hands to her hips and pull all that's left between us away. It turns my girl into a pulse, too, and I want inside the heart of love so fucking badly my bone marrow tingles.

Surrounded in silence save for raindrops, I slide my touch up from her ankles, brushing my thumbs gently over little scrapes and the bandaid on her left knee. Straightening my spine with the strength of love that wants to protect just as strongly as it wants to make frozen fingers warm, and drive just to kill spiders in the middle of the night, I slide higher, up thighs that are just as slick as they are soft, until my hands frame sex so bare, so burning warm I can feel it just being near.

A glance from her eyes to glistening dark pink lips makes my heart drop all the way down. It throbs between my hips, and I inch my hands closer, careful not to touch where I know she wants my cock first. I press her legs slowly further apart, making so-swelled little lips open.

Bella whimpers, bare in desire, reflexively lifting trembling hips, and I let her, not wanting to deny my girl any part of what she's feeling. I let her rock as I spread her all the way open for my eyes. Even more desperately pink than the tips of her breasts, she's closer to red here, too, and at the very top of soaking wet sex, so carefully tucked and just barely unhidden, is the prettiest, littlest, most tender part of her.

Folding the yearning to circle and kiss her so-sensitive little secret, I let go of her legs to let it hide again, and return my eyes to hers. Weighted by want as strong as love, I grip her right hip and guide her closer to me by it while placing the heel of my left hand between her legs. Not on her. Over. Just above where all those tiny nerves are bundled together and so eager for careful affection.

"So fucking pretty," I whisper, shifting my left hand when the backs of her thighs are resting on the fronts of mine so that I can lean over my love. "You're so, so beautiful, Bella. You're perfect, girl. You're so perfect."

Humming little summertime wraps her arms around my neck, and in our shifting, my cock slides against precious pink, and it shakes both of us. We're so close and there's no stopping. No one is fucking stopping, but neither of us can give what we need from this angle.

"Back, lay back, baby," I coax, bracing one hand over her shoulder and sliding my other back to slick-soft inner thighs. Eyes Bella can hardly hold open watch mine for guidance, and as she shifts her left leg higher around my side, I press my palm into her right.

"I need more room," I tell her quietly, pressing slowly all the way down until her knee's nestled against our bedsheets and I feel pretty little sex open all the way again.

"Can you let me fit, little Bella?" I ask in a whisper, brushing my nose along hers as I slide between her legs, letting her feel what asked for. "Can you let me try to fit inside you, pretty girl?"

Pupils opening wider, my love nods quickly, clinging to me with all she's made of.

"Yes," she chants, breathless and so beloved. "Yes, yes."

I moan over her lips as I settle into place, pressed right up against where she's open, but not yet holding me.

"I love the way _yes_ sounds on your lips, baby," I breathe, filterless and swimming in love.

"Masen," she coos, fingers in my hair, legs trembling, every part of her surrendered and susceptible and so fucking trustful. "Masen, please, please..."

"There you go, baby," I smile lovingly over little pleas and faithfully lush longing. "Show me. Show me you can take my cock, Bella..."

She lifts and slides, trying with all her beautiful heart to open wider.

My smile parts so fucking high. I love her right here, just like this, so fucking much.

"Helpless," I whisper, brushing my nose along the side of hers. "Let me help you, little glow."

"Please, Masen, God, please," she begs, arching, shaking and straining to let me inside. "Please, please, please-"

"Shhh," I whisper, kissing love along her lips, brushing her hair back and cradling her crown. "I'll make it fit, baby. I promise, girl. I'll give you everything. Come here, baby. Let me try..."

And she is.

And I am.

And we're moving together through a hazy-sweet sting and the most beautiful barely audible little prayer.

"Don't stop, don't stop," Bella chants just under my ear. "Don't stop, please, don't ever stop..."

I shake my head over hers, spun and sinking all the way into heaven-pink sunshine without any easing back or hesitation. I fill love's body and both our hearts steadily, with the heavy kind of grace only patience can bestow and all the ardor two souls can hold.

Completely pressed and tangled, together on every level through shared shakes, we slide in morning light with eyes open for as long as we can.

Then revel with them closed, digging, rolling, revering in the most basic way love knows.

With no room left for pain or panic, wrapped in and filled with the most ardent adoration, we're mostly movement, breaths and beats, locked looks and helpless intermittent _I love you_'s that bubble over when our lungs let us speak. Warmer than the sun and wetter than the rain, more rare than both at the same time, we find that place on the closest, most evanescent edge of pure euphoria and just rock, right there.

The inherent drive to come twists and turns in my gut, but I'm so blissed in loving and being loved that it's easily secondary. I don't care if I do because this, feeling my girl just like this, is so much more.

Then, before even she does, I feel the most cherished little give surround me from inside. Bella's whole body slacks for a second, and then she's bracing for a fall she's feared more than anyone ever should and wanted more than anyone ever has.

With her legs around my waist and her hands in her hair, on her face, sliding back and forth from her neck to her breasts and belly and back again, this girl, my miracle is touching and feeling and learning to love herself right before my eyes. Underneath me and filled with me, at home in our bed, Tulip comes into boundlessly blushing full bloom.

And there's nothing else. Nothing before this, nothing other than how much I love this person right here, right now.

Shifting my knees to press closer, drawing adorable little notes from her, I lean down and cover Bella how I know she loves to be covered, and press my cock as deeply as our bodies let me. It pushes higher little cries into each of her breaths, and I rock right there, right where no one else will ever touch her.

"I feel you," I whisper, so low over her ear as I seek both her hands. Palm to palm, I dig to find myself even deeper, to show my glow where I feel her best.

Fucked-heavy lids lift wide for the fullness I'm helping her hold, and I see her.

I hear her.

I taste her on the back of my tongue and I know her with my lungs.

I feel love, right fucking there.

"You're going to come for me, Bella," I promise, both our hearts beating so hard I can barely register the sound of anything else. "You're going to come so fucking hard on my cock, baby."

It sends little summertime spinning. Her breaths turn into gasps she can't catch and every little muscle she has clings so tightly to me, it rolls all the way through to my bones.

Deeper.

All the way through.

It's too much.

I close my eyes tightly, tensing all over. Bearing down completely inside her, I grind through the impulse to come and fight to hold out, just a little longer.

Doing so makes high little gasps turn into pleading little cries of pleasure, and I feel her. Pressed all the way close like this, I can guide love from inside.

"There you go, Bella," I whisper, giving her more, digging deeper than all the way. "Just hold on, girl. Hold onto me. Let me fuck you, baby."

Breaths and heartbeats flutter out of control. Every fucking part of her curls, and I push slowly deeper still.

"That's right," I breathe against her cheek, filling and over-filling her the way every part of her is begging me to. "Just let me fuck you, girl. Let me fuck you just like you need, baby. Let my cock all the way inside so I can give you my come, Bella."

Love trembles all around and all along me.

"I know you want it, baby. I know you do. Let me give it to you. Let me come inside you, girl..."

Pleading trembles break into countless little slick-tight tingles that cover every fucking inch of me.

"There you go," I barely breathe, holding on while shakes and shivers, tight little tingles and the most delicate love notes fill our room. "There you go, little summertime. Only mine. I've got you, baby. You're just mine. Only mine, Bella. Only mine..."

And she is.

And she doesn't fall.

She flies.

And so do I.

I'm blind in the rush that courses from the backs of my eyes and down my spine, and deaf in the next moment to everything but heartbeats. Then everything's glowing and flowing and so fucking warm. Love's full grown, and I've never felt anything like this, ever.

Ever.

Until Bella's voice floats through, pulling me from muffled bliss that's higher than high and deeper than deep.

"I've got you, too," good morning promises softly, all around me. "I've got you, boy. Hold onto me. Hold onto me Masen..."

I feel my hands holding her hips, and I'm still coming.

I give love everything I promised.

Everything.

The sweetest, smallest sounds surround me, and for a second without time, I feel like I'll never stop coming.

"I'm here, boy," love whispers, soft palms on my cheeks. "Right here. Right here..."

Bella kisses breath back to me, and shifting my grip from little hips to our bed takes the last of my strength. I can't help laying down, resting my head on her chest, chasing my breath as I rise and fall with each of hers.

Still inside.

Still spinning.

"Masen," she hums in dreamy gratitude, her voice just as worked over and laid bare as every part of both of us.

Resting over bronchial tubes and beats my heart loves more than its own, I smile.

"Masen," she sighs, so softly it's barely audible over morning rain and precious rhythm of little lungs, hard at work.

"My girl," I breathe, nestling against the most cherished respiratory system.

"Masen," she sighs, wholly joyful and so worn out.

It's the sound of her smile, and it's forever innocent.

Even now.

Maybe even more so now.

Because it's truly mine.

Made of love and smiling from inside, I kiss skin over the heart that makes my own beat harder, and close my eyes.

"Say it again," I whisper, already addicted, drifting with her in the wild sweet pea breeze.

With a sweetly exhausted giggle, Tulip curls fingers I love into my hair.

And wraps me in my new favorite sound.

* * *

**love :-)**

**thank you so so much to brightheart sherlock poppybaby and to sharon for prereading this for me. i know i'm last minute, and i love you guys. thank you, my truelove babyblue for letting me cry and vent and squeak and giggle and bounce all over you with this. thank you so much for all your careful love and patient work. thank you for being the one i shave :-) thank you nic and mag for creating something that inspired this and so much (really truly, SO MUCH) great reading and writing for so many people. thank all of you guys for making time for me, and for calming me through what hurt, and for sharing in something i've come to love so much.**

**thank you guys for that, for being a part of this by giving these words your time of day and a place to grow in your minds and hearts. thank you for giving them a chance and for all that you've said and done. i love you all. i felt kind of awkward posting this today, but love is so much stronger than anything else, and i wanted not just to remember, but to celebrate that. it's what brought us all here, right? **

**love. just love :-)**

**thank you so much.**

**xxoxoxoxoxo**


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